Last Classified Fax Machines Retired | Dark Money | U.S. Military Is Trying to Read Minds, and more

“The border crisis has spiraled into a national security crisis, and with public reports showing that more than 1,500 individuals evade law enforcement at the border every day, it must be immediately addressed.” McCarthy continued, “Every congressional leader and Vice President Harris should receive this same briefing to help them understand the extent of the security risks we face because of the border crisis.

Pentagon Prepping Program to Screen Military Service Members’ Social Media for Extremism: Report  (Thomas Barrabi, Fox News)
The Pentagon is preparing to launch a program that will screen the social media posts of military members for “concerning behaviors” amid a broader crackdown on domestic extremism, according to a report on Tuesday. Bishop Garrison, a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, is leading development of the program, the Intercept reported, citing internal documents. The program would “continuously” track social media content for extremist views. The Pentagon is expected to tap a private firm to run the program to avoid potential First Amendment violations, the outlet reported, citing a senior Pentagon official. The program will reportedly utilize keyword searches to identify potential extremist views. Officials are attempting to compile a list of keywords that would not violate freedom of speech protections. Pentagon officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. Austin announced the establishment of a Countering Extremism Working Group, or CEWG, in April in a bid to crack down on extremism within the military. At the time, the Pentagon said the working group “will make recommendations on further development of such capabilities and incorporating machine learning and natural language processing into social media screening platforms.

What Links Cybercrime, Terrorism and Illegal Trade? Dark Money  (Oliver Bullough, Guardian)
In March, the government published its review of all the threats facing this country, and how it would respond to them, from hostile autocracies and cybercrime to terrorism and trade. Running through the pages of this huge and complex document, like lead through a pencil, is one consistent vulnerability: dark money. No matter who you identify as our adversaries – mafia groups, al-Qaida, whoever – they all hide their wealth in the shadows of the financial system: by obscuring ownership with shell companies, or using dodgy banks, or by holding wealth in the form of physical assets, such as fine art. And shining light on those shadows will expose their secrets and help make us all safer. It will also make us more prosperous: more than 2,200 acts of fraud are reported every day in Britain. Those crimes cost us billions upon billions of pounds, and often most affect older and vulnerable people. For those concerned about the damage wrought by rampant fraud and corruption, this absence was depressing. We hadn’t been expecting much either. Officials had managed expectations downwards before the speech, insisting Johnson’s top priority was to repair the damage caused by Covid-19. And it’s true that many of the proposed measures in March’s review were qualified with the usual “when parliamentary time allows.

Domestic Violent Extremism and the Intelligence Challenge  (Mitchell D. Silber, Atlantic Council)
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, amid discussion of an “intelligence failure,” the United States government reformed the structure of the federal government, formed a new department dedicated to homeland security, changed the architecture of the intelligence community, and created a director of national intelligence. In the wake of the storming of the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, there is yet again discussion of “intelligence failures.”
The critical gaps on the domestic side of the post-9/11 intelligence architecture call for reforms in how domestic counterterrorism intelligence is organized and led. Although January 6 was not a “complete intelligence failure” as some have described, it is clear that it was a multi-point failure in the current collection, analysis, and warning system—specifically geared toward domestic violent extremists. There are calls to reform the intelligence community, both to prevent a repeat of this type of event and, more broadly, to combat “domestic terrorism,” domestic violent extremism (DVE), or “racial or ethnically motivated violence” (REMV). Changes must be made to the current US intelligence architecture to face this new and changing threat environment in a way that maximizes intelligence success against the domestic violent-extremist threat and prevents future surprise attacks in the homeland.

CISA’s EINSTEIN Had a Chance to Be Great, but It’s More Than Good Enough  (Jason Miller, Federal News Network)
Back in 2005, the head of the National Security Agency broke out his red marker and circled a section of a white paper written by cybersecurity experts and gave them a two-month deadline to bring this idea to bear.
The concept the experts detailed to Gen. Keith Alexander would let NSA use technology to identify adversary tradecraft in flight, outside the wire so to speak, and treat it as a network problem.
Alexander thought the technology would be a game changer — maybe not a silver bullet — but something that would give the Defense Department a head start against ever-increasing threat before they made their way into the network.
Now, 16 years later, experts say this type of technology would’ve gone far to prevent, or at least limit, the damage for most of the major cyber breaches federal agencies suffered since 2005

The U.S. Military Is Trying to Read Minds  (Paul Tullis, MIT Technology Review)
A new DARPA research program is developing brain-computer interfaces that could control “swarms of drones, operating at the speed of thought.” What if it succeeds?

QAnon’s ‘Domino Theory’ Explained: Here’s the Bizarre Scenario That Has Trump Redeemed by the Arizona Audit—and Returning to the White House  (Jack Brewster, Forbes)
QAnon adherents—who mostly slipped underground following President Joe Biden’s inauguration and a social media crackdown on conspiracy theories—are now galvanized behind the idea that Arizona’s controversial election audit will prove there was fraud, handing the state to former President Donald Trump, and then launching audits in other states that will eventually lead to reversing the election results, and putting Trump back in power.

Anatomy of a Conspiracy Theory: Law, Politics, and Science Denialism in the Era of COVID-19  (Brie D. Sherwin, Texas A&M Law Review)

With COVID-19, we are facing the most serious public health threat of our lifetime. Now, more than ever, we need experts and sound scientific advice to guide critical decision-making during the pandemic. With conspiracy theories and other similar rhetorical weapons being used to discredit our scientific experts, we face a myriad of misinformation, mistruths, and all-out attacks on our experts, breeding distrust between the public and the policymakers leading the fight against the pandemic. As President Trump took office, scientists were routinely denigrated and isolated. Furthermore, science denialism has permeated its way up to the highest levels of government, resulting in disastrous public policy decisions that have been detrimental to environmental and public health. Funding was cut for much-needed research on zoonotic-borne diseases, the U.S. government pulled its support from the Paris Climate Agreement in 2017, and well-respected scientists were removed from various advisory roles in agencies. Until the COVID-19 pandemic, many of these decisions went unnoticed by the general public. But, in courtrooms over the past thirty years, judges have recognized the danger of fake experts and acted as gatekeepers to ensure that experts are credible and that science is reliable. The use of Daubert in the courtroom has provided judges with a tool for allowing expert testimony that has met certain indicia of reliability, so jurors can focus on making factual determinations instead of judging whether the sources of the expertise should be trusted. Without a similar gatekeeping function in society, citizens must make those determinations on their own. Scientists and advocates of science should employ their own rhetorical methods to restore the credibility and importance of science in protecting our environment and now our health. Change can only truly come from the ground up. Citizens must actually believe that the climate is changing; they must believe that the health advice they are receiving from public health experts is accurate and trustworthy enough to follow. It is time to put science first—we can only do that if we stop science denialism in its tracks and restore resources and trust in our scientific community.

Climate Change Will Force Coast Guard to Respond to ‘More Intense’ Storms, Biden Says  (Jacqueline Feldscher, Defense One)
One recent hurricane season cost the service nearly a billion dollars to respond to aid requests and repair the damage to its own facilities. The future is sure to bring worse.